He was getting ready to rebrand one of his Jumbo jets “The Starship” to fly the group around the venues.

Superfan: Branson was keen to fly group around venues

An industry source said they were told they could have £250 million for 35 dates in three cities, London at the O2, Berlin and New Jersey.

Led Zep were also promised £70million of the profit from merchandise and there was an option to do 45 more gigs in five venues.

The cash was to be split three ways between Plant, Page, 70, and Jones, 68, while Jason Bonham, 48, son of late drummer John, would have been paid a wage to perform.

Our band source said: “Jimmy, John and Jason signed up immediately.

“It was a no-brainer for them but Robert asked for 48 hours to think about it. When he said no and ripped up the paperwork he had been given, there was an enormous sense of shock.

"There is no way they can go ahead without him.”

Branson had planned to have the staircase of the Starship jet renamed the Stairway to Heaven after the band’s 70s hit and was going to sell off the back 20 rows of the aircraft as special Led Zep seats for £100,000 each.

The source added: “Branson tried to pull out all of the stops. But even his money was not enough to get Plant to sign up. He is gutted.”

Plant has previously said: “I have to be in some brand new zones quite regularly... It’s an insane thing to do, to go back.”

Formed in 1966, Led Zeppelin have sold more than 300 million albums. Their last performance was a one night only gig at London’s O2 on December 10, 2007.

These guys are wealthy men.
Plant just seems to have little interest in playing as LZ again.
He has all the money he'll ever need and chooses to play music HE wants to perform.

I imagine it would be like a high school reunion.
Some people think they are the greatest thing and look forward to seeing old friends.
Others just aren't interested in going back and seeing people you really didn't care for 30+ years ago.

Doing some very quick math, the AVERAGE ticket would have to be in the 400.00 range just to pay the band. They would need a gate of 7 or 8 million per show if they were doing 20,000 seat halls. The likely scenario would be something like a dozen nights each in London, NY, and LA or Chicago.